1980 Week: Just Tell Me What You Want

          With some failed films, it’s easy to identify the main problem—bad timing, a miscast actor, a weak script—but with others, diagnosing what went wrong requires a more holistic approach. Nearly everyone involved in the flop romantic comedy Just Tell Me What You Want is highly proficient, from director Sidney Lumet to leading man Alan King, and the film is impeccable from a technical perspective. Plus, it’s not as if Jay Presson Allen’s script, adapted from her own novel, is a complete disaster; although the jokes don’t land and the tone is all over the place, the character work is strong. And while it’s always easy to blame the failure of an Ali MacGraw movie on MacGraw, one of the least skilled actors ever to achieve above-the-title stardom, it wasn’t impossible for gifted directors to pull serviceable work out of her, as Lumet occasionally does here.

          So the problem with Just Tell Me What You Want is simply everything about the movie. It’s a comedy that isn’t funny, a romance about self-absorbed people whose love lives don’t engender empathy, and a narrative mishmash blending boardroom intrigue, showbiz satire, and other elements into an overarching storyline far too meager to support the extra weight of thematic heaviosity. However because Just Tell Me What You Want is made so well, it’s a bad film that looks and feels very much like a good film.

          The main plot involves the on-again/off-again romance between super-rich businessman Max Hershel (King) and his mistress, TV producer “Bones” Burton (MacGraw). How much of a prick is Max? He put his alcoholic wife into an institution, he yells at his employees, he makes degrading sexual remarks to every young woman he encounters, and he casually drops the c-word when denigrating ladies who anger him. He’s also a ruthless businessman, planning to buy a movie studio just so he can liquidate assets and pave over the studio’s physical plant. “Bones” isn’t any more appealing. A cynical careerist who uses her relationship with Max for financial gain, she casually embarks on an affair with a young writer (Peter Weller), perhaps because she’s aware that Max regularly dallies with other women. And when circumstances inevitably drive “Bones” and Max apart, he exacts cruel revenge by seizing all her financial assets, suggesting she was essentially a whore living off his largesse, despite her Emmy-winning stature in the TV industry.

          Viewed in the broadest strokes, Just Tell Me What You Want is thoroughly distasteful—but closer inspection reveals attributes. King gives a terrifically committed performance, and MacGraw is livelier than usual, though still quite stilted. Supporting players Weller, Myrna Loy (in her last screen appearance), and Kennan Wynn are wonderful. And every so often, a truthful insight emerges through the dense fog of Allen’s pretentious dialogue. Whether you’re willing to tolerate the movie’s shortcomings might depend on your ability to endure Max spewing this kind of vitriol: “I wouldn’t call that bitch a taxi to take her to hell!” Romantic comedy? Not so much. Acidic character study? Closer to the mark.

Just Tell Me What You Want: FUNKY

Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970)

          If nothing else, Last of the Mobile Hot Shots has an impressive pedigree: Based on Tennessee Williams’ play The Seven Descents of Myrtle, the picture was written by Gore Vidal and directed by Sidney Lumet. (The on-camera talent is not quite as luminous, since James Coburn shares the screen with Robert Hooks and a hopelessly miscast Lynn Redgrave.) Pretentions, seedy, and talky, the film seems more like an over-the-top recitation of tropes from previous Williams plays than a serious drama. The metaphors are obvious (the characters occupy a decaying mansion while awaiting a flood), the sexual material is lurid (incest, impotence, miscegenation, prostitution), and the rhapsodic speeches about the good old days of the antebellum South feel trite. While everyone involved works at a high level of skill, the only moment that feels fresh is the scene spoofing TV game shows, which is somewhat peripheral to the overall storyline. In sum, Last of the Mobile Hotshots is a straight shot of Williams’ boozy and hateful debauchery, with a pinch of Vidal’s signature bitchiness for extra spice.

          After sloppy drunk Jeb Thornton (Coburn) gets ejected from a bar in New Orleans, he staggers to a nearby TV studio, where folks are lined up to get inside. Jeb watches a taping of a redneck game show, and when the host asks for volunteers to marry onstage, total stranger Myrtle Kane (Redgrave) grabs Jeb and drags him before the cameras as her betrothed. Soon enough, the two are newlyweds, trekking back to Jeb’s family estate with the carload of appliances they won on the TV show. Upon arriving at the estate—a wreck of a place covered in filth from the last devastating flood—Myrtle meets Jeb’s half-brother, an African-American laborer nicknamed Chicken (Hooks). Turns out Jeb married Myrtle in order to produce an heir, thereby absconding with Chicken’s inheritance—but Jeb didn’t account for his own dire health issues.

          None of this is remotely believable, no matter how many scenes feature monologues about wild dreams of glory and wealth. Adding to the artificiality of the piece are dreamlike flashbacks and a recurring trope in which Lumet changes the lighting to blood-red while Jeb lurks in a wheelchair and contemplates his situation.

          Yet Last of the Mobile Hot Shots is periodically interesting. Coburn fares best here, since he has a full arsenal of actor’s gimmicks at his disposal—in addition to an accent, he gets to play several maladies at once while giving monologues about betrayal and pride. He’s quite arresting, even if his character is nothing more than a flight of fancy. Hooks is fairly strong as well, playing a character who’s equal parts opportunist and sadist. Redgrave is the weak link, because she murders dialogue by speaking in high-pitched, high-speed volleys, and her character seems insane instead of eccentric. Worst of all, the picture appears to be a misguided attempt at dark comedy, especially during the ridiculous finale. Oh, and for no discernible reason except perhaps for the general tawdriness of the themes, Last of the Mobile Hot Shots carried an X-rating during its original release.

Last of the Mobile Hot Shots: FUNKY

King: A Filmed Record . . . Montgomery to Memphis (1970)

          Originally exhibited as a one-night-only theatrical event, this massive documentary about the civil-rights odyssey of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. comprises chronologically ordered and expertly edited newsreel footage of key moments along King’s journey. As the title suggests, the picture begins in 1955, when King rose to national prominence by leading protests in Montgomery, Alabama, stemming from Rosa Parks’ bold defiance of a racist busing policy. King: A Filmed Record then depicts such iconic moments as King’s incarceration in Montgomery, where he wrote one of his most famous essays; his elegant responses to bombings and other violence committed by pro-segregation extremists; the March on Washington, including the historic “I Have a Dream” speech; King’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize; the marches through Selma, Alabama, that forced the intervention of the U.S. government on behalf of civil-rights activists; and, finally, King’s funeral after his assassination in Memphis in 1968.

          Eschewing narration, the film mostly lets archival footage stand on its own, although the project’s producer, Ely Landau, enlisted a number of noteworthy Hollywood liberals to appear on camera and read encomiums about King and/or pointed literary excerpts related to the never-ending struggle for equality and freedom. Stars participating in the project include Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Ben Gazzara, Charlton Heston, James Earl Jones, Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman, Anthony Quinn, Clarence Williams III, and Joanne Woodward. (Most are onscreen for a minute or less.) Adding to the project’s Hollywood pedigree is the quiet participation of directors Sidney Lumet and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who presumably filmed the celebrity testimonials. King: A Filmed Record is a long movie, running three hours and featuring an intermission after the “I Have a Dream” speech, but the length works in the project’s favor. Beyond the historical value in compiling so many of King’s important achievements, the piece celebrates the incredible power of King’s oratory while never losing sight of context. The film’s editors often juxtapose shots of press conferences and speeches with harrowing footage of human-rights violations, as well as images that show pain tracking across the faces of everyday African-Americans who bear silent witness to pointless degradation.

          Hovering over the whole experience of King: A Filmed Record is the heartbreaking knowledge of how King’s life ended. Every scene of the great man calling for dignity is tinged with the awareness of looming danger. Yet as King himself said in a prophetic speech that was played during his funeral, the survival of the dream was more important than the survival of the man. A tribute to both, King: A Filmed Record remains just as necessary and relevant as ever. Nominated for an Oscar as Best Documentary Feature, King: A Filmed Record was entered into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 1999.

King: A Filmed Record . . . Montgomery to Memphis: RIGHT ON

Child’s Play (1972)

          Even if one looks solely at the films he made in the ’70s, Sidney Lumet may well possess the most eclectic filmography of any major American filmmaker of his generation. Among other things, he made both the definitive NYPD movie, Serpico (1973), and the head-spinning musical turkey The Wiz (1978). Plus, scattered between his failures and triumphs are such oddities as Child’s Play, a psychological thriller that has some elements of occult horror. While Lumet delivers the strange flick with his customary intensity and sophistication, the picture’s bait-and-switch narrative is irritating, and the way three characters jockey for prominence makes the piece feel like a rough draft, as if screenwriter Leon Prochnik (adapting a play by Robert Marasco) couldn’t decide which viewpoint served the material best. Set in a private boys’ school, Child’s Play begins when a former student, Paul (Beau Bridges), arrives to begin his job as the new gym teacher. Paul notes the existence of a long and bitter rivalry between two veteran teachers, Joseph (Robert Preston) and Jerome (James Mason); Joseph is the upbeat student favorite, and Jerome is the hard-driving taskmaster. Compounding the intrigue, students keep acting like masochists by allowing other students to beat and torture them. Jerome, an old man fraying at the edges, thinks everything bad that’s happening is part of a campaign by Joseph to drive him away, but Paul begins to suspect there’s Satan worship afoot.

          The first hour of Child’s Play is borderline interminable simply because it’s so unfocused, but the second half of the picture represents a considerable improvement, for the power struggle between emotionally fragile Jerome and supremely confident Joseph becomes weirdly fascinating. Much of the interest, of course, stems from the performances rather than the writing. Mason renders more emotion than in nearly any other of his ’70s films, sketching a man crumbling under the weight of age and stress, while Preston layers surprising menace beneath his usual extroverted affability. Bridges, predictably, gets lost in the shuffle, which is a problem since he’s ostensibly the protagonist; Bridges spends a good chunk of the movie watching Mason and Preston do interesting things while contributing precious little to the overall dynamic. Although the final scenes wrap up the various plot threads in an eerie fashion, getting to the ending of this picture is a slog, and some aspects of Child’s Play are surprisingly amateurish. Composer Michael Small, generally a top-notch purveyor of subtle atmosphere, goes big in a very bad way with an obnoxious score, and Lumet overdoes the shadowy-cinematography bit, as if he’s shooting a full-on horror movie instead of what really amounts to a dark two-hander about a feud.

Child’s Play: FUNKY

Serpico (1973)

          Serpico occupies such a significant place in film history that it’s difficult to discuss the film without reaching for superlatives so grandiose they lack real meaning. Among other things, Serpico is one of the greatest police movies ever made, Al Pacino’s leading performance stands among the finest accomplishments in ’70s screen acting, and Sidney Lumet’s meticulous direction demonstrates why every other subsequent filmmaker telling a New York-based crime story owes him a huge stylistic debt. Furthermore, the story—which was drawn from a famous real-life saga—perfectly encapsulates the ambivalent attitude Americans had toward cops and criminals in the ’70s. The fact that Serpico is essential cinema on myriad levels creates a challenge when trying to articulate its strengths and weaknesses—the strengths are familiar to most movie fans because the picture has been seen so widely, and the weaknesses don’t matter all that much. Nonetheless, any survey of ’70s cinema is absurdly incomplete without Serpico, so here goes.

          Pacino, in the full bloom of his early-’70s breakout period, brings all of his intellectualized Method intensity to the role of Frank Serpico, a real-life NYPD detective who became a controversial figure by testifying publicly about widespread police corruption; this adaptation of Peter Maas’ best-selling book portrays the hero as an everyman with high principles who finds it harder and harder to survive in an environment rife with officially sanctioned illegality. The picture begins with Serpico’s early days as a uniformed beat cop, when he alienates coworkers by refusing to accept protection money and by refusing to pinch cash that’s taken from crooks. As Serpico’s career continues, he evolves into a longhaired detective adept at undercover work, earning a steady stream of commendations and promotions for his bravery and investigative skill. Alas, Serpico’s rise coincides with a cancerous spread of police corruption, so his unwillingness to play dirty provokes widespread enmity. This culminates with a showdown that the real Serpico claims was an assassination attempt engineered by bad cops who were afraid that Serpico was going to blow the lid on corruption. And, indeed, the finale of the story, as in real life, is Serpico’s public testimony.

          The narrative is fantastically interesting from start to finish, and Pacino’s investment in his work is unquestionable—he’s a live wire in every scene. By the time the actor fidgets and struts through undercover scenes while he’s hidden behind long hair, a shaggy beard, and a floppy hat, his performance has reached the level of incarnation, because the emotional and physical reality Pacino creates by occupying space in a naturalistic way is utterly persuasive. Furthermore, Lumet captures the gritty rhythms of New York life so perfectly that much of Serpico feels like a documentary. If there’s a noteworthy flaw to Serpico, it’s that Lumet and Pacino focus too closely on the details of the main character’s journey through the shadowy world of the NYPD. With the movie covering such a large stretch of time and including so many incidents, supporting characters inevitably seem incidental and interchangeable. As noted earlier, however, criticizing Serpico is a fool’s game, because one could easily counter-argue that the personal nature of Serpico is exactly what makes the film uniquely powerful. (After all, the story’s about one man against the world.) FYI, the movie’s success inspired a short-lived 1976-1977 TV series starring David Birney, though the deeper influence of Serpico can be seen in countless subsequent movies that attempted, with varying degrees of success, to imitate the film’s hyper-realistic texture.

Serpico: RIGHT ON

Equus (1977)

          British playwright Peter Shaffer has gone to many dark and deep places in his work—the crowning achievement of his career is arguably Amadeus, which premiered in 1979 and was adapted into the lauded 1984 film of the same name. Yet perhaps the most provocative of Shaffer’s works is Equus, which premiered onstage in 1973 and ran for years in London and New York before reaching the screen in this 1977 adaptation. (As with Amadeus, Shaffer handled the screenwriting chores.) Inspired by a gruesome incident from real life, Equus imagines the psychology of a young man who blinded six horses with a scythe. The picture is structured as a duel of sorts between the disturbed teenager, Alan Strang (Peter Firth), and his psychiatrist, Martin Dysart (Richard Burton). Equus begins when Alan is committed to Martin’s hospital following the incident, so Martin spends the rest of the movie interviewing Alan—as well as Alan’s parents and former employer—to discover what drove the boy to heinous violence.

          Shaffer and director Sidney Lumet embellish their storytelling with vivid flashbacks depicting past events in Alan’s life, eventually culminating in a dramatization of the horse-blinding rampage, which is exactly as hard to watch as you might imagine. The crux of Shaffer’s story is revealing the complex nature of Alan’s personal belief system. Blending the religious views of his parents, the confusing impulses of burgeoning sexuality, and the mystifying impact of an early childhood encounter with a horse, Alan constructs a bizarre psychosexual ideology in which “Equus,” the spirit of all horses, is a god overseeing Alan’s development. Martin learns that Alan has secretly enjoyed erotic experiences with horses, such as stripping off his clothes to ride horses bareback until he climaxes, and that Alan’s skewed vision of physicality triggered the bloodshed. Shaffer’s story, which the writer has said is wholly invented except for the blinding incident, represents an incredible leap of imagination.

          Furthermore, Shaffer is in some sense insulated from criticism because the most outlandish proposition of the story—the notion that a boy fascinated by horses would intentionally mutilate six of them—is extracted from reality. Given a world where such things happen, can anything Shaffer presents by way of possible explanation be dismissed as too bizarre? Plus, because Shaffer complements Alan’s tragic journey with a completely fictional construct—Martin’s tortured emotional life—it becomes apparent that Shaffer is after something more than simply “explaining” a monstrous act. Among other things, Equus is a story about transference, since Martin seeks to heal Alan by absorbing the boy’s demons into his own wounded soul. This is grim stuff, and Lumet presents the narrative unflinchingly.

          Burton is rendered naked emotionally during long monologues that demonstrate the actor’s remarkable facility for rendering both intricate language and bone-deep pain. Firth is rendered naked emotionally and physically, his frequent onscreen nudity a fitting way of representing Alan’s childlike vulnerability. (Supporting actress Jenny Agutter, always a brave trouper during revealing roles, adroitly counters Firth by showing an adult’s ownership of her nudity, which confuses Firth’s character terribly.) Some viewers will accept Shaffer’s narrative as a metaphor representing the mixed signals we receive in life about religion and sex, while others will discard the story as gruesome and pretentious. To say the least, this movie is not for everyone. Yet while Equus is bleak and excessive and grandiose and strange, its finest moments have searing power.

Equus: GROOVY

The Wiz (1978)

          Catering a new version of The Wizard of Oz to African-American audiences was a novel idea—hence the success of the 1975 Broadway musical The Wiz, which combined funky songs and an urban milieu to draw a parallel between L. Frank Baum’s timeless Oz stories and the longing for a better life that’s experienced by many inner-city denizens. Yet one could argue that generating an all-black show marginalized African-American culture as much as, say, the lily-white casting of the beloved 1939 The Wizard of Oz movie. However, it’s probably best not to delve into thorny racial politics here. Rather, the relevant question is whether The Wiz justifies its own existence in purely aesthetic terms. Based on this lavish film adaptation (which, to be fair, involved heavy changes to the source material), the answer is no. Dull, gloomy, overwrought, and weighed down by Diana Ross’ ridiculous casting as a fresh-faced youth, The Wiz is a chore to watch.

          Improbably, the film was directed by Sidney Lumet, best known for making such gritty dramas as Dog Day Afternoon (1975), though trivia buffs may dig noting that Lumet cast his then-mother-in-law, singing legend Lena Horne, in a pivotal role. Anyway, the basic story is familiar: Dorothy (Ross) gets transported to the magical land of Oz, where she hooks up with companions for a trip down the Yellow Brick Road to see the Wiz, whom she hopes can help her get home. You know the drill—wicked witch, enchanted shoes, click your heels together, and so on. Every element is tweaked with an African-American vibe, so in addition to all of the actors being black, this movie’s version of Oz is a funhouse-mirror version of New York, complete with subway stations and urban blight.

          Ornately designed by Tony Walton, who received two Oscar nominations for his work on the picture, The Wiz is a strange hybrid of chintzy stagecraft and elaborate cinematic techniques—the costumes and sets in Oz look deliberately bogus, and the big musical numbers unfold on a proscenium facing the viewer. Therefore, notwithstanding screenwriter Joel Schumacher’s changes to the play’s dialogue, this is less an adaptation of a stage show than a filmed record of one. In a word, flat. Ross is awful on myriad levels, from being too old for the role to over-singing her endless solo ballads—star ego run amok. The supporting players generally try too hard, resulting in oppressive energy and volume, though Michael Jackson (no surprise) stands out as the loose-limbed, sweet-hearted Scarecrow. As for featured player Richard Pryor, who plays the Wiz, he comes and goes so quickly that he can’t make an impact.

          Whether the music works is of course a highly subjective matter, but to my ears, only “Ease on Down the Road” (this film’s version of “Follow the Yellow Brick Road”) and the Wicked Witch’s number, “Don’t Bring Me No Bad News,” linger—most of the songs are gimmicky or syrupy, if not both. Yet the biggest problem with The Wiz—and there are lots of big problems—is that it’s not fun. The dialogue is stilted, the mood is glum, the narrative drags, and the production design is so artificial it can’t elicit any genuine reactions. If ever, oh ever, a Wiz there was, this Wiz ain’t it.

The Wiz: LAME

The Offence (1972)

          Throughout the ’70s, Sean Connery seemed determined to undercut the dashing-hero image into which he’d been typecast following his ’60s success in the James Bond franchise. For example, consider this dark drama based on a British stage play by John Hopkins, who also penned the movie’s script. Instead of playing a righteous peacekeeper, Connery plays a monster with a badge—after his character, Detective-Sergeant Johnson, murders a suspect during a ferocious interrogation, the movie uses detailed flashbacks to explain what drove Johnson to violence. Despite this potentially explosive premise, The Offence is underwhelming. Obviously, an actor whose screen persona encompasses a broader emotional palette than Connery’s could have played the story’s textures with more precision—though it’s just as easy to imagine someone like, say, Richard Harris taking the characterization way over the top. So the problem isn’t necessarily rooted in Connery’s limitations. Surprisingly, the faulty X-factor might be director Sidney Lumet, who normally soared with this sort of narrative.

          Here, Lumet skews too heavily toward the clinical side of his filmmaking approach, organizing actors and events so meticulously that the piece ends up feeling antiseptic. And, of course, one could easily question the source material itself, because Hopkins’ script is painfully talky. Although Hopkins was an experienced screenwriter with dozens of teleplays to his credit by the time he wrote The Offence—he’d also worked on a few features, including the dreary 007 epic Thunderball (1965)—Hopkins failed in the basic task of adaptation, which is converting strengths from one medium into qualities that suit another. As a text, The Offence is quite strong, with logically defined progressions and scientifically precise character details, but as a viewing experience, it’s dry and repetitive. Another shortcoming, of sorts, is the casting of Ian Bannen as the suspect. While a perfectly capable actor with a gift for playing twitchy nutters (see the 1971 thriller Fright), he’s not charismatic enough to counter Connery’s star power. As a result, neither lead performance explodes off the screen. This is an admirable movie on many levels, but it could and should have been more powerful. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Offence: FUNKY

The Anderson Tapes (1971)

          Enough goes right in The Anderson Tapes that it’s almost possible to overlook the huge problem at the movie’s center: The main storyline of an apartment-building heist is exciting, but the gimmick of observing certain events through illicit wiretaps and surveillance cameras is pointless. In other words, the “Anderson” part is pretty good, but the “Tapes” part, not so much. Based on a novel by Lawrence Sanders and written and directed, respectively, by future Dog Day Afternoon collaborators Frank Pierson and Sidney Lumet, The Anderson Tapes begins when thief Duke Anderson (Sean Connery) gets released from jail after a 10-year incarceration. He heads straight to the bed of his sexy girlfriend, Ingrid (Dyan Cannon), who lives in a posh apartment building as a wealthy man’s kept mistress. Duke decides Ingrid’s building is a treasure trove waiting to be robbed, so he contacts a well-heeled gangster (Alan King) for backing, and then puts together a motley crew to pull off the job. Anderson’s colorful accomplices include a swishy art expert (Martin Balsam) and a cocksure electronics whiz/safecracker (Christopher Walken).

          As in all of Lumet’s New York-based crime pictures, the pleasure of The Anderson Tapes comes from watching cops and hoodlums methodically plan their respective efforts, because Lumet has a peerless touch for grounding high-stakes action in believable character dynamics. In his universe, crooks and police officers wrestle with mundane problems like budget shortfalls, looming deadlines, and workplace tension. Thanks to these nuances, the robbery scenes and the police-standoff climax are terrific. However, nearly everything else about The Anderson Tapes is wobbly.

          Duke’s relationship with Ingrid is unbelievable, since her loyalty wavers in a manner that’s narratively convenient. Balsam’s characterization is borderline offensive. And the whole business with the surveillance tapes is a miscalculation: We see various parties recording Anderson’s activities, and we get the idea he’s stepped into a web of illegal wiretaps installed to catch bigger fish, but this angle never affects the story. Still, the performances are generally strong. Connery is macho and believably frustrated by his dubious cohorts; King is cheerfully vicious; Cannon is cynical and sultry; and Walken, in his first major screen role, brings his signature twitchy energy. Even Balsam, despite the insensitive characterization, is quite enjoyable. And watch out for future Saturday Night Live star Garrett Morris as a world-weary beat cop.

The Anderson Tapes: FUNKY

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

          Riveting from its first frame to its last and infused with equal measures of humor and tragedy, Dog Day Afternoon is a masterpiece of closely observed character dynamics and meticulous dramaturgy. It also contains two of the most powerful performances of the ’70s, from leading man Al Pacino and co-star John Cazale, to say nothing of one of the decade’s most memorable moments, the “Attica, Attica!” bit in which Pacino riles up a crowd gathered around the movie’s central location by invoking a then-recent tragedy at a New York prison.

          The story is a riff on a real-life bank robbery that was comitted by crooks with unusual motivations. Pacino plays Sonny Wortzik, an intense ne’er-do-well who recruits his dim-witted buddy, Sal (Cazale), to help with a brazen heist in broad daylight. The robbery quickly evolves into a hostage situation as cops, led by Sgt. Moretti (Charles Durning), congregate outside the bank. Then, as we watch various communications between Sonny and the outside world, we discover why he planned the heist: for money to pay for his boyfriend’s sex-change operation. So, while the anxious afternoon darkens into an excruciating evening, viewers develop deep compassion for Sonny’s peculiar plight—on top of everything else, he’s married to a woman and doesn’t want to hurt her, even though his heart belongs to Leon (Chris Sarandon).

          Working from a Frank Pierson’s Oscar-winning script and guided by Sidney Lumet’s sure directorial hand, Pacino reveals dimension upon dimension of his offbeat character, never once making a cheap ploy for audience sympathy; the actor illustrates such deep and profound emotional truths, through behavior and dialogue and physical carriage, that Sonny feels like a living and breathing human being in every scene. The performance is not for every taste (the Method-y screaming and general demonstrativeness is a turn-off for some viewers), but it’s impossible not to recognize Pacino’s work as some of the most impassioned and meticulous performance ever committed to film.

          Cazale, the haunted-looking Bostonian who died at age 42 after appearing in just five films (all of which were nominated for Oscars as Best Picture), is terrific as Sal, a slow everyman who can barely grasp what’s happening at any given moment, much less the future implications of his actions; in the classic moment, he’s asked what country he would like to flee to after the robbery, and he says, “Wyoming.” Durning offers humanistic support as a cop trying to keep a bad situation from exploding, Sarandon is funny and sensitive during his brief appearance as Sonny’s lover, and a young Lance Henriksen shows up toward the end of the movie.

          But it’s almost completely Pacino’s show, or, more accurately, Pacino’s and Lumet’s. As they did to an only slightly lesser degree on Serpico (1973), the two men lock into each other’s creative frequencies perfectly—Lumet creates complex, lifelike situations to frame Pacino’s emotional explorations, and Pacino fills Lumet’s frames with as much vitality as they can contain. Detractors might argue that the movie drags a bit in the middle, but because each scene enriches our understanding of Sonny’s inner life and his strange predicament, complaining about too much of a good thing seems petty—few movies offer as much in the way of believable pathos and varied tonalities as Dog Day Afternoon, and few movies sustain such a high level of artistry and craft for the entire running time. Exciting, frightening, moving, surprising, and unique, Dog Day Afternoon is as good as it gets in ’70s cinema.

Dog Day Afternoon: OUTTA SIGHT

Network (1976)

          There’s a reason why sophisticated contemporary screenwriters from Billy Ray to Aaron Sorkin bow at the feet of playwright-screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, and the script that best exemplifies that reason is Network, Chayefsky’s audacious satire about a TV personality who becomes a pop-culture phenomenon by going insane while America watches. By the mid-’70s, Chayefsky was a veteran dramatist with credits dating back to the ’50s heyday of live TV, and his reputation was such that his words reached the screen more or less untouched. For Network, Chayefsky let loose with all of his literary powers, constructing an outrageous plot, symbolic characters, and wordplay so dense and dexterous that each monologue is like a high-wire act.

          Network is filled with such esoteric verbiage as “multivariate” and “sedentarian,” and the ideas the script presents are as elevated as the language. In the story, network-news anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) gets sacked for low ratings, then responds by announcing on air that he plans to commit suicide. His stunt triggers a ratings spike, but concerns his deeply principled boss and best friend, news-division chief Max Schumacher (William Holden). An ambitious executive from the network’s entertainment division, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), sees an opportunity to exploit Beale’s breakdown. Backed by Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), the omnivorous lieutenant of the corporation that just bought the network, Diana seizes control of the nightly news broadcast and turns it into a circus act featuring crazies like Howard and “Sybil the Soothsayer.”

          Concurrently, Diana makes a deal with a terrorist organization to film its insurrectionist crimes, so before long the network’s top two shows are the vulgar “news” show and the brazen “Mao Tse Tung Hour.” Firmly situated as the story’s drowned-out voice of reason, Max is briefly seduced by the lure of slick sensationalism—he ends up in Diana’s bed even though he’s married—but once he comes to his senses, all he can do is bear witness as primetime becomes a madhouse.

          Director Sidney Lumet, unobtrusively serving Chayefsky’s script, tells the story with methodical precision, orchestrating a handful of astonishing performances. Finch gets the showiest role, ranting through moments like the famous “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” speech; the actor died just before receiving an Oscar for the role. Holden, his once-gleaming features ravaged by years of drinking, is a vivid personification of an idealist-turned-cynic, and his runs through long speeches are as graceful as they are muscular. Dunaway, burdened with the most overtly symbolic characterization in the piece, is so chillingly soulless that she makes the contrivances of her role seem necessary and urgent. Duvall, adding an almost Biblical degree of rage to his previously muted screen persona, is layered and terrifying. And Ned Beatty, who pops in for a cameo as Duvall’s boss, blows away any memories of his usual bumbling characters by portraying a sociopathic corporate overlord.

          Network is filled with nervy scenes, like the vignette of network executives negotiating a contract with gun-toting terrorists, and the climax is thunderous. And although it comes awfully close, Network isn’t perfect; some scenes, like Max’s confrontation with his wronged wife (Beatrice Straight), are overwritten to mask their triteness, and Max’s final monologue to Diana summarizes the picture in a manner that’s contrived, obvious, and unnecessary. But even in that scene, arguably the most film’s laborious, Chayefsky’s language is intoxicating: In the course of excoriating the reductive nature of television, Max laments that “all of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality.” Especially since most of Chayefsky’s bleak predictions about television have come true since Network was released, this profound film has lost none of its elemental power.

Network: OUTTA SIGHT

Lovin’ Molly (1974)

          Unlike the two celebrated Larry McMurtry adaptations that preceded it, the melancholy Hud (1963) and the wrenching The Last Picture Show (1971), Lovin’ Molly captures some of the author’s unique style but lacks any discernible narrative momentum. It doesn’t help that both the lead role and the director are miscast. Tart urbanite Anthony Perkins isn’t the least bit persuasive as a simple-minded Texas cowpoke, and diehard New Yorker Sidney Lumet has no idea how to shoot wide-open spaces, resulting in some of the dullest movie images ever made of Lone Star State locations. The rangy story spans 1925 to the mid-’60s, and the filmmakers unwisely use the same actors to play the protagonists in all of these time periods, leading to lots of clunky old-age makeup toward the end.

          When the movie begins, free-spirited Texas girl Molly (Blythe Danner) courts two farm boys, Gid (Perkins) and Johnny (Beau Bridges). Meanwhile, she’s wooed by a third local, Eddie (Conard Fowkes). Molly makes no secret of the fact that she’s sleeping with all of them, which causes consternation for Gid and Johnny: They can’t decide which of them should propose, because neither wants to give up their open invitation to Molly’s bed. While the boys vacillate, Molly inexplicably marries Eddie. Yet even that change doesn’t crimp her style, because while married to Eddie, she conceives children with both Gid and Johnny. And so it goes throughout myriad long dialogue scenes and carnal vignettes, none of which do much to clarify the characters, because the narrative events in Lovin’ Molly comprise a long, monotonous march toward an inconsequential ending.

          The biggest problem is an ineffectual screenplay by Stephen J. Friedman, who produced not only this film but also The Last Picture Show. In his sole screenwriting endeavor, Friedman fumbles at trying to cinematically replicate the delicate rhythms and subtle emotional undertones of McMurtry’s storytelling. As a result, Lovin’ Molly starts awkwardly, since Friedman doesn’t give the narrative enough focus out of the gate, then ambles endlessly, because he doesn’t know how to define the importance of events relative to each other.

          Therefore the only rewarding elements of the film are the utterly authentic frontier jargon, presumably transposed wholesale from McMurtry’s book, and the acting. Despite his miscasting, Perkins puts across a strong petulant vibe that works more often that it doesn’t, and Bridges and Danner are both easy and natural. Among the film’s other players, the strongest is ’50s/’60s TV stalwart Edward Binns, who gives a muscular performance as Gid’s cantankerous father, especially when feasting on crisp monologues filled with crusty aphorisms.

Lovin’ Molly: LAME

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

 

          The praise lavished on this bloated Agatha Christie adaptation (including six Oscar nominations and one win) has always mystified me, because while Murder on the Orient Express is a handsomely made film with an intelligent script and an amazing cast, it’s still just a contrived and methodical whodunit. It appears that much of the picture’s novelty derived from the fact that it was a throwback not only to a beloved Hollywood genre, but also to a more sophisticated time in terms of diction, fashion, and manners; somewhat like the aesthetically pleasing accoutrements of the same year’s Chinatown, this film’s glamorous production values and swellegant ’30s costumes were a change of pace from the gritty realism that dominated early ’70s cinema. Furthermore, Murder on the Orient Express is that rare all-star jamboree in which each actor has something interesting to do, with several performers receiving impressive showcase scenes, and even elaborate subplots, during the course of the movie’s lumbering 128 minutes. One could never accuse Murder on the Orient Express of shortchanging the audience.

          As for the story, which screenwriter Paul Dehn adapted from Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel, it’s ingenious but not necessarily persuasive, and the lack of any real emotional heft means the experience of watching Murder on the Orient Express is all about luxuriating in production-design eye candy, piecing together clues, and savoring star power. Set in 1935, the movie finds Christie’s urbane detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) riding the famous train mentioned in the title. Poirot becomes enmeshed with a group of people including wealthy American Samuel Ratchett (Richard Widmark), so when Ratchett gets stabbed to death early in the journey, Poirot and Signor Bianchi (Martin Balsam), an executive with the company that owns the train, join forces to determine which passenger was responsible for the crime. The gimmick, as per the Christie formula, is that everyone in a confined space is a suspect, so the closer the investigation gets to the truth, the greater the danger becomes for everyone involved. Despite the film’s posh trappings, this is not highbrow stuff.

          Worse, Murder on the Orient Express is tedious, at least from my perspective, and director Sidney Lumet’s overly respectful treatment is part of the problem. Treating Christie like Shakespeare is as absurd as, say, treating John Grisham the same way. There’s simply no reason for this empty spectacle to sprawl over such a long running time. Giving credit where it’s due, however, Murder on the Orient Express is a visual feast. The clothes, linens, and table settings make the titular train seem like a rolling four-star hotel, and cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth uses his signature haze filters to make everything look painterly—to a fault, because sometimes it’s hard to distinguish details. But the biggest selling point, of course, is the high-wattage cast. Beyond those mentioned, players include Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman (who won an unexpected late-career Oscar for her work), Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, and Michael York.

Murder on the Orient Express: FUNKY